In addition to its ground breaking work in Viticulture and Food Science, UC Davis also hosts the largest collection of Olive cultivars in all of North America and it contains one of the strongest olive research programs in the world. Unfortunately these researchers have long been scattered throughout the different departments of the university, with engineers, sensory researchers, and plant biologists all working in isolation, without opportunities for cooperation and collaboration. Until now.

As a part of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, the UC Davis Olive Center will bring together a diverse group of researchers from the varied departments of the university to provide specialized research that will assist California olive growers and processors in producing olives and olive oil for domestic consumption and international export. The center will produce research into new cultivars, mechanical harvesting, olive fruit fly control, olive oil processing and sensory evaluation of olive oil. The center will also be involved in efforts to map the olive genome and provide genetic fingerprinting services for olive cultivars.

They're also the people behind the UC Davis Olive Oil that people are always buying at the bookstore to give to their parents/grandparents as the ultimate UC Davis logo gift.

In July of 2010 The UC Davis Olive Oil Chemistry Laboratory collaborated with the Australian Oils Research Laboratory to evaluate the quality of extra virgin olive oils sold on retail shelves in California. The ground-breaking report report (PDF) found that 69% of imported olive oils failed to meet the USDA and International Olive Council standards for extra-virgin olive oil.